Music string



0. INFELD MUSIC STRING Sept. 11, 1956 Filed May 14, 1952 In V872 for United States Patent Office MUSIC STRING Otto Infeld, Vienna, Austria Application May 14, 1952, Serial No. 287,740 Claims priority, application Austria May 31, 1951 2 Claims. (Cl. 84--297) Notwithstanding the numerous advantages which the well-known metal (steel) wire strings present over the strings, made from organic materials, efforts continue to be made for improving the metal (steel) wire strings. An acoustic improvement i. e. an improvement in tone and timbre can be realized by increasing the elastic elongation of the carrying metal core.

This aim can be attained by imparting to the carrying metal core an undulatory crisping or crimping. It has also been tried to twist together, in the manner of a cable, a plurality of those crispingly undulating strands, but also straight wires without undulation. However, all these trials have not yielded the results expected, and these novelties have not been able to hold their own in practice.

The present invention relates to a music string whose core loaded with the string tension, is composed of metal (steel) strands, arranged helically and being wound over an elastic inset, made of silk, nylon, or the like, on which the strands, in the tensioned state, are made to exercise a radial pressure owing to their stringent action, whereby the elastic elongation of the string is increased and a softer and fuller tone is obtained. It is not the object of these metal strands to lower the tone of the string i. e. to act as a ballast, but to take up and absorb the full tension of the string. A covering composed in this manner may then be provided with a further covering with nylon, aluminum, copper, and the like.

The drawing shows various embodiments of the subject matter of the invention on an enlarged scale, Fig. 1 being aa perspective view of a string. Fig. 3 represents another mode of execution while Fig. 5 shows a string whose elastic inset is reinforced against pressure by a thin metal wire covering so that the compressibility of the inset can be varied according to the purpose in view.

2,762,251 Patented Sept. 11, 1956 Figs. 2, 4, and 6 are cross-sections of the strings according to Figs. 1, 3, and 5.

In the cases represented by Figs. 1 and 2 the inset is made of silk which may be replaced by any other suitable elastic material such as nylon, or catgut. Said inset is covered by strands 2 composed of metal (steel) and surrounding the inset in helical lines of high pitch. Additionally a covering 3 may be provided. In strings of this kind the force in the strands is-in tensioning decomposed in two components of which the one acts in the axial direction, while the other is made to radially act in the inward direction so as to compress the inset 1. This makes for an increase of the elongation, and assures a compact cohesion permitting of advantageously combining the acoustic advantages of the metal with those of other materials.

In the embodiment shown in Figs. 1 and 2 the strands 2 have a circular cross-section, whereas in Figs. 3 and 4 the strands 4 are band-shaped, so that the inset 1 is tightly enclosed by said strands. Figs. 5 and 6 show an elastic inset 1 surrounded by a thin coil 5 having the object of elastically catching and absorbing the radial pressure of the strands.

I claim:

1. A string for musical instruments, comprising a central elastic inset, a low-pitch coil of thin metal wound around said inset, at least one metal wire wound helically around said low-pitch coil with a large helix angle for substantially carrying the entire string tension and exercising a stringent and tightening eifect on said low-pitch coil by means of pressure in the radial direction, the lowpitch coil being adapted to elastically take up and absorb said pressure.

2. A string for musical instruments according to claim 1, in which an outer covering is provided on said metal wire Wound helically around said low-pitch coil.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,187,962 

